I’m a staff writer covering all things Wall Street and Investing. I have a love hate relationship with the world of finance. I am fascinated by the industry’s power and influence around the globe, and the ingenuity of the people it employs. Not so much a fan of the lack of accountability when the system fails—which it often does: I'm always on the hunt for people and companies to profile.

As a financial advisor, a key part of my job is to evaluate risks and probabilities, and to then recommend strategies to reduce these risks as much as possible. We use financial calculators, build algorithms and create large spreadsheets in order to paint some sort of picture of the future. But our outcomes are only as good as the assumptions that we use in building our models.

One of the major, and most overlooked assumptions in determining when to start Social Security benefits is the likelihood that Congress may change the benefits in the future. After all, a retiree will only receive benefits as long as the government provides those benefits.

For those who reach retirement age financially set, either through hard work, disciplined savings, luck, or a combination of all three, consider taking the money as soon as you can get it.

I am not implying that I believe Congress will cut Social Security benefits to retirees in the near future, but it is certainly within the realm of probabilities that there will be some sort of “means testing” in the future. And if you think I’m nuts for even suggesting this, consider the following:

Social Security payments were tax-free for many years. A worker paid into the Social Security system through payroll deductions, the employer matched those payments and the worker received the benefits tax-free during retirement. It would seem unreasonable to be taxed on the retirement payments since there was no tax-deduction provided to the worker for the contributions made.

Congress took an unfortunate step in reducing benefits to” wealthier” retirees with the passage of the 1983 Amendment to the Social Security Act. This law effectively reduced Social Security payments for higher income retirees by taxing up to 50% of the benefits for those who had provisional income of $25,000 ($32,000 for married tax filers). Essentially, the government was providing benefits with one hand while taking them away with the other.

Things got worse in 1993 when Congress passed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, which increased the percentage of benefits that would be included in taxable income. The law caused up to 85% of benefits to be taxable for those with provisional incomes of greater than $34,000 ($44,000 for married).

These higher taxes did not impact a large portion of Americans: mainly, those who were retired with low income and were relying upon Social Security benefits. But for those who had higher incomes during retirement, the taxes definitely had an impact. A retiree today in the top Federal income tax bracket of 39.6% will see an effective reduction in benefits of 33.66% (85% of 39.6%). That’s a one-third reduction in benefits.

And it gets still worse. Higher income retirees pay surcharges for Medicare Part B and Part D. There once was a time when all Medicare recipients paid the same, but the surcharges now apply to “higher income” retirees.

So what does the future hold? It is anyone’s guess, but considering that Social Security and Medicare are growing much faster than tax receipts, something has got to give. Perhaps the shortfall will be made up entirely by taxing the younger workers. This is possible. But it’s also quite probable that this shortfall will be made up by some sort of means testing for the higher income retirees.

A means testing for Social Security could be an increase in income taxes, a reduction in benefits, a sur-tax, or some other method. Who knows what Congress could dream up?

Obviously, I cannot predict what our elected leaders may do 10 or 20 years from now any more than I can predict where the stock market is headed this year. I wish I could. I can, however, emphatically state that there is at least some possibility that Social Security payments will be needs based in the future.

Because I don’t know what the future holds, here is my rule of thumb: For those who will need Social Security benefits during retirement—those who will be relying upon the income to meet their monthly needs—I recommend you defer the commencement of benefits for as long as possible, perhaps even until age 70. You’ll have a much larger check each month and, given the fact that you’ll need the money, you won’t be an easy target for Congress to slash benefits in the future.

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I generally liked your article, although I was suprised it didn’t include an important fact: if you delay social security retirement benefits as I had been thinking about when I turned age 66 to age 70, if one doesn’t live to age 70 your survivors will get nothing. What I am doing, since I can afford to do so, is invest all my social security benefits into bank CD’s. I may not get 8% annual returns as I would have if I delayed, but at least my survivors will get something. Also not mentioned is that it takes around 11-12 years to break even from not taking the benefits at age 66, meaning I would not start doing better financially until after age 78 or so- a bit of a gamble

You always take SS at 62 even if you don’t need it. Throw it into a savings account. If you make it to 70 they give you the option to give them back the money and start anew collecting the higher monthly amount. If you don’t live that long there is a lump sum in your savings account that is in your family otherwise the govt gets it.

as others have pointed out, waiting to collect benefits makes an assumption that you will live to that age (usually 70) and that you will continue to live beyond that age at least long enough to collect as much total benefits as you would have collected had you started at, say, age 62. Take the money and run.

Admit it once you are dead the fact that you did not collect earlier will not matter will it? But running out of savings at 80 and having only social security to live off might make you wish you waited.